Kirkwall - The Gallows
Cullen stood at the library window overlooking the Gallows courtyard. It was storming, rain forcing the markets to close early and gray clouds blocked out the sun like gaatlok smoke.
He felt the letter, tucked within his gauntlet, scratching at him like a bad memory.
And he waited for Ruvena.
If he approached her, he would lose his mind, he was barely containing himself now. He needed to breathe, needed the quiet.
He needed to think of what he'd say without making a fool of himself.
So he lingered in the library. Amongst the books, and the parchment, sulking, waiting, his mind and body at war over what to do.
She knew. For over a year she held this secret as if it were hers to keep. How had he ever seen good in Ruvena? She was a liar, she was cruel.
He hated her.
Exhaling slowly, he massaged the tension from his brow.
Perhaps he was being unfair, how could Ruvena know how deeply this affected him? He'd hardly been forthcoming, even when she'd asked.
Only Knight-Commander Greagoir had heard from him what happened in Ferelden, and Meredith had only an official report that she latched her fingers into and used to fuel his paranoia against the mages.
He was alone with his pain, his feelings forever trapped in that moment so many years ago.
Amell's terrified eyes meeting his as she was dragged away, his heart a prisoner of the memory.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to forget her face.
Desire and hatred, fear and love, knotted together, unable to release. The pain crippled him, turned him into an angry, wounded animal.
No, he hated Ruvena. There was no excuse for what she'd done.
He was Knight-Commander in all but name, and she'd gone behind his back to spy on his demon.
No, not a demon.
He opened his eyes, still massaging his forehead.
The rain pooled into the courtyard, flooding it, and he tried to drown his love for her the same way.
Praying to the Maker, repeating the Chant, reviewing his vows.
None of it helped.
Then she marched in, with her men, back into the Gallows. Her rough, brutish steps crashed through the water, without care or concern of how much she splattered the people in her wake.
His hands curled, clenching, into a fist and he felt his head pound.
Calm down, Rutherford.
He rested his forearm on the stonewall beside the window, and then rested his forehead against his gauntlet, and watched the rain, and waited until the gray skies turned to black, and his anger was devoured by a cold, calm desolation.
"Andraste's ass, you look broodier than usual," joked Ruvena, her loud steps grating every last nerve he had as she crashed through the library toward him.
He bit down hard, his teeth aching.
"Cullen?" she called. "He-llooooo."
He refused to look at her, opting to stare into the black nothingness of the courtyard, the torches drowned by the invisible rain.
The clank of her armor stopped, and he could hear her cross her arms, as she always did.
"What's twisted your knickers into a—"
Cullen turned to her, fishing the letter from his wrist and flung it at her feet.
Her face cycled, first angry, and then confused.
"Don't you want to read it?" he asked, surprising himself at how steady his voice was.
She snatched the letter from the ground, rolling her eyes, and unfolded it.
And then her beautiful, perfect face went pale.
"W-what's the big deal—" she started.
Excuses, as he expected.
"You know why it's a 'big deal'," he said. "Spying on the Teyrn, hiding it from me. You allowed apostates to remain unchecked with one of the highest ranked men in Ferelden. May I ask why?"
"The Teyrn wanted them there," she retorted.
"That makes no sense."
"Things happened that I can't talk about—"
"Tell me everything, now, or as Andraste's my witness I'll have you arrested for treason," he said, his voice a cold, quiet threat.
"You wouldn't dare," she said.
A mage walked in, and Cullen pointed at him angrily, "Get out! No one enters the library for the rest of the evening!"
"Y-yes Knight-Captain," stuttered the confused mage, quickly shutting the door tight as he fled.
"We really gonna do this in the library?" asked Ruvena in disbelief. "We should go to your offi—"
"Talk, now. I won't ask again," commanded Cullen, his voice finally betraying the rage roiling beneath.
The expression of defeat on her face seemed forced, fake, and it made him furious.
"I tried to have the apostates arrested, but the templars were compromised and I didn't know who to trust! I had only one templar ally, and he broke his vows, let a blood mage have the Teyrn, but I think he was just scared," she said, and then threw her arms in the air, "I'll just write a report for you since you want to know so bad!"
"I'll hear it all from you!" he snapped.
Ruvena swallowed hard, and stood straight, the bravado and arrogance replaced with a stone wall of professionalism that infuriated him.
She recounted the tale, from her perspective. She'd met with the Teyrn, he seemed eccentric, but normal, he introduced his betrothed Lady Shayna Amell.
Cullen's heart thumped, the muscles in his neck tightening.
She was later stopped by Ser Cavin, and he informed her of the four apostates, and Ruvena described them.
"Three apostates," said Cullen. "Lily is an initiate."
"I was busy trying to stop an apostate from ripping off my head, forgive me for not noticing if she was throwing spells around too," she retorted bitterly, and then continued.
She described the clash at the castle, the one armed Dalish mage that healed the Teyrn. Amell remained behind whilst Jowan and Lily fled as she and Cavin were unconscious.
Jowan had abandoned her, again, and Cullen wasn't the least bit surprised.
"The Teyrn told me she was named Shayna Amell, but I heard the whiny apostate calling her Kena," said Ruvena, "that's the end of it all, the important bits anyway."
She seemed relieved to get it off her chest, and she exhaled roughly.
"Did you find out what Circle she was from? How she got to Highever?" he asked. "No one escapes Aeonar."
"The Teyrn kicked me out, wouldn't let me get answers," she said. "I wouldn't know squat about Aeonar either. But unless there's another Kena Amell, and another Jowan and Lily… well I suppose some people do, in fact, escape Aeonar."
Cullen leaned back against the wall, and pressed at his temple, head spinning.
Alive, this whole time.
It relieved him, frightened him, that she had existed outside of his knowledge for so long. She wasn't just a memory, she was real.
He had to find her.
"Listen, I get it, she's one of your past indiscretions—" Ruvena started, but he angrily stopped her.
"You won't speak of her that way," he growled, "I've never crossed that line, ever."
"Then what's the issue?!" she yelled back, exasperated, "Why are you treating me like I've blown up the Chantry?"
"Why are you spying if the Teyrn warned you to stay away? If you cared so much for your title, why risk it at all?"
Ruvena's face burned crimson, and she scowled, "I was curious how the homely mage I saw could earn the protection of a Teyrn, and haunt the dreams of stick-in-the-mud Cullen."
He burned with anger and shame at her words.
"This investigation is over," he said.
"No! She's an apostate, I know she's up to something!" Ruvena protested.
"Enough!" yelled Cullen, "You—you don't know her, she would never hurt anyone."
"You bastard," Ruvena laughed bitterly, "your voice changes when you talk about her, you know that? How long ago was it? Maker you're even more fucked up than I realized!"
"Ruvena," he warned, but she was angry now, her lies exposed.
"She still has you twisted around her gnarled finger! Ha! The great Knight-Captain Cullen in love with a—"
"ENOUGH!" he bellowed, and punched the nearby shelf hard, books toppling to the floor.
Ruvena went quiet, but her expression remained furious.
"I will have your title revoked," he said, his breath short.
"The fuck you will, you need me," she spat, "you wouldn't dare."
He stormed at her, and she flinched back.
As if he'd ever hit her, her reaction nearly sent him into another rage, but he bit his tongue hard and snatched the letter from her grasp.
"You've no idea what I'd dare, " he whispered, and felt so sick looking at her, he wrinkled his nose as if smelling garbage. "I don't know what I ever saw in you."
"Fuck you too," she whispered back, "you're obsessed, you need help."
He couldn't stomach being under the same roof as her, so he left, and found his way to the Hanged Man.
Renting a room, he ordered a drink and downed it in one go, and when that proved useless against the storm in his mind, he ordered another, and another.
And then one more after that.
His head was spinning, his mood coming down from fury to utter defeat.
Stumbling to his room, his fingers fumbled, unsuccessfully pulling at his armor, and he couldn't breathe.
He'd been unnecessarily cruel to Ruvena, he needed to apologize, but why should he? Ruvena deserved no apology.
Still, perhaps she was right to spy, she couldn't leave apostates unchecked, it made sense in a way…
No.
She lied.
Duplicitous, conniving, hateful woman.
She fully admitted it was because she couldn't understand why he cared for Amell, there was no honor in spying for that.
His thoughts were inconsistent, nonsensical, bouncing back and forth until he wanted to take a hammer to his skull to stop the torrent.
Maker, please make it stop!
He collapsed onto the filthy bed, still in his armor.
She was forever a Circle mage in his mind. Ruvena was mad, Kena Amell was not homely. She was beautiful, and soft, he'd brushed his fingers against hers once, by accident, when he helped her carry a heavy crate to the library.
His chest tingled at the memory of her smooth, olive skin, and the way she smiled up at him, tucking her hair behind her ear.
She was everything he wasn't, and it made her perfect.
He could still see her clearly in her apprentice's robes; she hadn't even changed into the gold and green robes of a real mage before Jowan ruined her.
She was so scared, brought so low, and he'd watched and done nothing as they took her way.
Because what was there to do? Defy the Order? Throw himself on the pyre for a woman he could never admit to caring for out loud? He was already on thin ice with Irving and Greagoir, and he only wanted to be a good templar. Obedient, and devoted to the Maker.
He was a coward.
What had he known of her anyway? That she liked the rain, and snuck to the high tower at every new moon to see the stars at their brightest? That when she should have been studying, she would read novels, and blush quietly to herself.
The ways he imagined himself making her blush shamed him.
She loved apple pie, but hated raw apples, and on the days when they served pancakes and bacon for breakfast she was the first to arrive, and the last to leave.
She smelled of roses, and a natural sweetness, and she was a good mage, and an even better person. Kind, considerate, unlike any other woman he had ever seen, before or since.
Her crime, helping a friend, and even though she had done wrong he could not bring himself to hate her for it.
Her voice calmed and energized him more than any Chantry hymn or song he'd ever heard. When the apprentices were brought in to sing the Chant of Light, her voice was quiet, but he heard only her.
And when she said his name...
He shuddered.
The way she moved her hands when she spun her spells, and how her hips swayed as she walked down the halls. Her face burned red, smiling at him as he stood beside her, walked past her, spoke with her, carried her burdens…
What was love but a collection of sights, smells and experiences both real and imagined? Was Kena Amell the woman he remembered? Or had the years warped his memories, turned the girl he knew as a boy into something she never was? Something greater?
Even the fear drilled into his heart by the demon wasn't enough to erase his desire for her. It intertwined, became something else, ground into his heart like a painful blister, unable to pop.
Kena Amell, the woman he always wanted, but could never have.
He yelled and gripped his hands so tightly into his own hair it hurt. He hated himself, wanted to die, his shame could never be admitted out loud, and he was ashamed.
It was an unhealthy obsession he could not rid himself of, no matter how hard he tried.
He'd given himself to a lay sister in Greenfell, over and over, but it did not help. A bitter first time that brought him no joy outside of the physical, and then he'd taken up with Ruvena, and still, he could not forget her.
His insides tumbled, excitement and fear, the mage and the demon, fused together by so much pain.
If only he could pull them apart, it would be one less nightmare, and maybe then he could let her go.
But his nightmares brought the demon, and the demon had her face, and that made forgetting her impossible.
Unable to sleep, tossing and turning until he grew delirious and sick with exhaustion, he found himself finally too tired to move, and as usual, his body could take no more and shut down.
And then he dreamt of her, and the demon, and his friends all dead.
He awoke the next day, exhausted, his panic simmered down to a comfortable dysphoria, and he made a decision.
Kirkwall carried the closest significant templar force to Highever, despite the Waking Sea in between, and the Order only respected leaders and borders out of courtesy. If the templars in Highever would not deny the Teyrn, he would have to.
The idea that she was less than a week away, by boat, sent a wave of fear and excitement through him. He was so close, so close, to concluding this chapter of his life.
He would go to Highever himself, and Ruvena would no longer be Knight-Captain once he returned.
It would be a test, to gauge his loyalty to the Maker and the Chantry. He would bring her in, no matter what he felt, or wanted. He could prove to himself that he could move past this.
She was an apostate, and he was a templar, and his feelings would never change that.
Once he brought her back to the Circle, he'd be able to square away the tangled memories in his mind.
She was always reasonable, ridiculously smart, there was no way she would refuse to come back with him when given the choice between returning to Aeonar, or accepting confinement to the Gallows.
If he could find Amell the woman, he would be able to destroy Amell the demon, and then he would be free. It was the nightmares, the demon in his dreams that kept her in his heart, never allowing him to forget.
At least, that's what he told himself.